Anyone who knows me knows that I love boba!  The only problem is that there aren’t many boba places near our small town of Ripon. The only time I could get it was when I went to southern California to visit my family.

Recently I have seen many pictures on Snapchat of Ripon High students at a new boba shop in Manteca called Tea Time. I was curious if I could get the same quality boba as southern California right here in Manteca so I decided to write a review of two boba drinks, one from southern California and one from Manteca.

The first place I went to is called Wushiland which is located in Arcadia, California. Wushiland is located in an adorable Japanese market. The market is full of interesting and unique Japanese snacks. The market makes the atmosphere so much more enjoyable. Everything in the store felt clean and safe.

Most boba tea places have a large menu with a wide range of selections. Most places have a variety of teas such as fruit teas, milk teas, and blended drinks but Wushiland only had a limited number of choices. The majority of their drinks were milk teas and they didn’t have any sweet flavored teas. Although I was hesitant, I tried something new and ordered jasmine milk tea and as soon as I received it I found a new favorite flavor tea. The milk tea was creamy and had a strong flavor and the boba was sweet and chewy.

The service there was also very good but there were some complications. The milk tea came out about a minute or two after I had ordered it but the people there were not very friendly and didn’t speak very much English. While ordering I had to repeat myself multiple times. Then I gave a man my money and he took it and then started talking to another man in another language for about 2 minutes. I was extremely confused and I thought something was wrong with my money.

Overall, my experience at Wushiland was very positive, even with the subpar service.

When I returned home, I headed to Tea Time in Manteca. I was immediately intrigued by the decor of the shop. The shop is covered with pictures of adorable pandas that are holding tea and other cute decor. The atmosphere of the store made me hopeful for the drink.

The lady who took my order was very nice and did it very quickly. I liked the variety of their menu but they only had one size which was large and more expensive than what I would usually get.

I took my seat and expected to be waiting for three to maybe five minutes, but I ended up waiting for about 10 minutes. This seemed outrageous to me because milk tea usually doesn’t take long to make and the shop was not busy at all.

I finally received my jasmine milk tea with honey boba and I was so excited to try it but when I took a sip, I was majorly disappointed. The tea was watery and the flavor was not what jasmine tea should taste like. There was also a terrible aftertaste.

Even though there were some positive things about Tea Time, Wushiland was much better. The quality and flavor of Wushiland were not even comparable to Tea Time.